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Researchers Create Artificial Insect Eye
maxzilla writes "An artificial insect eye that could be used in ultra-thin cameras has been developed by scientists in the US.The dimpled eye, contains over 8,500 hexagonal lenses packed into an area the size of a pinhead. The dome-shaped structure, described in the journal Science, is similar to a bee's eye. The researchers, from the University of California, Berkeley, say the work may also shed light on how insects developed such complex, visual systems. Darpa is also funding this project with applications expected for digital cameras and high speed motion detectors."
Now we won't have to provide blind insects with guide dogs!
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
When will they be getting around to the rest of the artificial insect?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
So we are competing with nature now. Very soon the blind will have a better option at vision and the rest of us will be scrambling in the dark. That would be a funny sight.
There is nothing permanent except 'Change'- HERACLITUS,6TH CENTURY B.C
I'll be impressed when they can transplant this eye into a poor blind insect.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
The question, I want to ask is, is it still in research phase or professional services will start becoming available, when and how much it might cost?
There is pool of blind people in developing countries like India, China and so on. The inofrmation might be useful for them too.
[Posting anonymously to avoid karma whoring]
...They didn't create it, dosn't anyone watch X-Files, its a discover lead by the Aliens, who will use the new eye to further the artificial development of insects to carry Alien genetic material to form the super Alien race (we all know humans are the most suppiorer already, just not intelectual). Comming soon, nanite insects that "Repair" damaged organs or tissue...Yeah Repair
New viewing angle tecnique for movies - fly on the wall...
SEEE! This PROVES the eye is so complex that it requires an Intelligent Designer! :P
This space available.
It's comforting to know that our future robot masters will have terrifying, alien faces with which to express their terrifying, alien throught processes.
If you thought those fiber-optic based surveillance cams were bad, you'll hate these even more.
Yeah, this will find tons of apps in all sorts of useful places, but at a certain point, they'll be so cheap that you'll have to be afraid that people have hidden them somewhere, and that you are being watched.
This will be like camera phones, but squared and then cubed.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
It's not only insects we're mimicing, crustaceans too. Astronomers have investigated the eyes of lobsters and used the way they focus light to create a Lobster Telescope For X-Rays
According to TFA, "At the moment, the artificial eye is not connected to any kind of imaging device.".
I understand that whoever made this thing is eager to show it around but shouldn't they actually wait until they have something to show ?
It's becoming the norm nowadays to announce stuff that's only half done... I don't know if it's to satisfy investors or what but it sounds quite silly.
"look, we have this great insectile artificial eye !"
"impressive, what does it see ?"
"we don't know"
Well, duh.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Future wars will not be faught by giant robots or ultra-enhanced bionic soldiers or UAVs. They will be faught by fleets of artificial insects with collaborative AI.
Artificial insects are capable of a wide range of operations:
1) psyops: killing the important people of the opposing force (leaders, generals, scientists, etc) would be as easy as sending an insectoid armed with deadly poison. Undetectable, it can sting its victim while the victim is sleeping, or goes to the bathroom, or is in a public place surrounded by thousands of people.
2) blocking enemy forces: a swarm of insectoids can easily render whole armies inoperable in a blink of an eye: tanks, rocket launchers, comm centers can be rendered inoperable with few insectoids injecting the proper substances at the proper places.
3) invading a land by only killing humans, living infrastructure intact.
A swarm of insectoids can go undetected by radar, since insectoids can fly in small formations, and only joined at the destination.
Nanomachines can be used to create billions of one-time insectoids at very low cost.
Seems german scientists beat those US scientists to it. The team from the Fraunhofer Institute received a german research award for creating an artificial insect eye over a year ago.
Find more technical infos here (sorry, german only).
Why is it that 99% of those articles try to be done with the boring facts as fast as possible and dive into the exciting world of "this may/can/will be used for [INSERT SOMETHING FROM A MOVIE OR SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS REALLY IMPORTANT]" speculation.
So if a new sort of "no unpopped kernels" popcorns was disovered, we'll have to read how this will lead to us flying to distant galaxies and finding the purpose of existence.
Sorry for feeding the troll, but :
The biggest difference between having faith in some deity or having faith in selection/randomness/ifinite time/etc... is that in case of the second, you can also try to disect the subtle mechanics of it and try to understand it, and then try to apply the knowledge you acquired. It makes you able to develop better medecine, or to be able to predict what will happen next according to the models you developped studying science (or in case of archeoly : try to guess what happened 'between' before the archeological evidence shows up). Which is hard to do with a deity, because you'll have to catch it first before being able to disect it, because as you're not a deity yourself you're not supposed to be able to understand it, and you aren't supposed to be able to predict what's is someone else head.
Evolution is a way to say "Let's try to understand how it works", ID is a way to say "Fuck, I give up. It's too hard to understand. It must have been done by [insert your favorite deity's name here]".
On the other hand, religious faith has generated some nice and interesting pieces of art and litterature, although it also managed to generate a lot of holy wars.
Second, EVOLUTION IS NOT PURELY RANDOM. Most moderne life form have (thru evlotion) acquired means to 're-use' what has been done before (example: by recombining and reshuffling functionnal parts) and evolve and adapt faster than just waiting until it happens by randomness.
(NOTE: I *do* work in a genetic lab. A *do* know what I'm speaking about)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]